Technology

68672 readers

3248 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related news or articles.
Be excellent to each other!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

731

SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds (futurism.com)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

132 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Abstract from the paper in the article:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280

Large constellations of small satellites will significantly increase the number of objects orbiting the Earth. Satellites burn up at the end of service life during reentry, generating aluminum oxides as the main byproduct. These are known catalysts for chlorine activation that depletes ozone in the stratosphere. We present the first atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulation study to resolve the oxidation process of the satellite's aluminum structure during mesospheric reentry, and investigate the ozone depletion potential from aluminum oxides. We find that the demise of a typical 250-kg satellite can generate around 30 kg of aluminum oxide nanoparticles, which may endure for decades in the atmosphere. Aluminum oxide compounds generated by the entire population of satellites reentering the atmosphere in 2022 are estimated at around 17 metric tons. Reentry scenarios involving mega-constellations point to over 360 metric tons of aluminum oxide compounds per year, which can lead to significant ozone depletion.

PS: wooden satellites can help mitigate this https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01456-z

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

The quotes are there because it's a common misconception that as soon you have any kind of 4g signal, you have access to a fast connection, which is not the case. So in many countries at some point they proclaim that "xx%" of the population now has access to "4g", which will be technically true, but the actual % that has access to fast 4g will be substantially lower.